The Parts Men Play

watch on the altar of art, he had been compelled to rely on appetite, with the result that he arrived just as eight was striking. Lady Durwent did her best, but

n the thing and was unable to shed it. This impression was heightened by a mannerism, repeated frequently during the evening, of grasping her very low bodice with her hands, exhausti

strands of fine gold, and her dainty feet were enclosed in a pair of bronzed shoes. As her lips were h

ely dressed young man whose hair fell straight and black over a large collar that had earned a holiday some days before, and whose

stess, 'you look' (sotto voce) 'simply wonderful! I think you

do?' said

minced Mad

hair by the fire. Y

perfectly meeserable climat

g into his chair in an apparently boneless heap.

E ROY J

ack disorder, much as if she had started to dress i

tti.-She did not know

.-She was gla

at the ring of women about him, shrank into his c

, vaguely relying on the last sounds re

egular meals-tea at eleven and four, and hot milk with a bit

ceful figure of the New Wom

st ordinary life-and una tazza di tè. But we who are not so-comment dira

reiterated the resolut

ho alternated between Italian and French phrases in

descrying a storm on the yellow and

mmoned a blush, and rose to meet the ardent author, who was dressed in a characterless evening suit with

she said softly

e writer, bowing

to be discreet,

E

coquetted. 'Pe

aid Mr. Dunck

kley-and you too, Mrs. Le Roy Jennings; you clever people ought

d'y

are

endid,

g,' said Lady Durw

USTIN

He was clean-shaven, and his light-brown eyes lay in a smiling setting of quizzical good-humour. He was of rather more than medium height, with well-poised shoulders; and though a firmness of lips and

Durwent, 'I knew you w

y some of England's-

d Madame Carlotti, whose social charm was risin

be the personification of Italy in dreary Lo

ley, coming to the aid of

Durwent with a sigh o

. Selwyn of

sera, s

sera, s

n's hand, thus taking the most direct route obtainable b

ian!' cooed Madame Carlo

rarely he achieved a reputa

k struck eight-thirty; and there followed an awkwar

cing a smile, 'knew of each other, anyway. It's like

e,' he said. 'I am not widely known in my own country, and can har

ley-'what does New Yor

ugh

ed that in conversation, as well as in w

tate thoughts?

. D., with ill-co

y one so stationary as the other could project any

ear that. Of course, the great difference between there and here

o had succeeded in writing both an American and an English publishing house into bankruptcy) while the various

urwent anxiously, 'wha

HNSTON

announcing his arrival. He looked particularly long and cadaverous in an abrupt, sporting-artistic, blue jacket, with sleeves so short that when he waved his

e nose with his right eye as if he were aligning the sights of a musket, 'don't te

f the evening (to say nothing of maintaining the friendship between Smyth and the Duke of Earldub, whose part in his dilatory arrival

us to the dining-room, 'I had forgotten all about Elise!' She hurriedly rang

an arc-light just over the door, 'she is